


Sweet Dreams

by Deleaf



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamscapes, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Hope, Male Friendship, No spoilers for TOA, One Shot, Post-The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus), Post-The Heroes of Olympus, post-BoO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22366351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deleaf/pseuds/Deleaf
Summary: After the Battle of Gaea, Percy dreams of Tartarus.  That is until a friend pops by to teach him about dreams and the nature of beach balls.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo & Percy Jackson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Sweet Dreams

For the record, I hadn’t wanted to dream of  _ arai _ the whole night. I certainly hadn’t intended to get my friend involved.

It was a typical night in the Poseidon cabin. The fountain trinkled peacefully. The walls were gleaming. My dirty laundry was strewn across the floor haphazardly.

It was about a week and a half after Gaea’s defeat and I could tell I was about to have a particularly bad nightmare the evening before, but I was exhausted from an evening of sword practise and working with the naiads who were keen on more representation. As a son of the sea god I felt it necessary to aid them.

So when I collapsed on my bunk that night, I had no choice but to let my eyes float shut.

However, when I opened them in my dreams, all I saw was Tartarus. I was reliving my memories from the abyss. The  _ arai _ picked bets. Bob looked lost. Annabeth was hurting. Each time a memory like this came about it was never perfect. The more I panicked, the worse things got. One time instead of falling down to Tartarus with regular Annabeth with me, I watched her rot in my arms as we fell forever. This time the spirits clung onto recent memories.

_ And this is for the giants killed _ , one sneered. They were much more vindictive in my dreams.

_ And this is for Leo. He died because you couldn’t stop him _ . Unlike real life, it wasn’t just the curses people gave that hurt. It was all the curses some part of me thought I deserved. Or I thought they would give.

_ Ah yes _ , one sneered,  _ The curse of drowning, from beloved Octavian _ .

_ Silena Beauregard _

_ Medusa _

_ Charles Beckendorf _

_ Annabeth Chase--ah, for making her fear you when Misery came to visit _

I crumpled at that one. I learned long ago that nothing was sacred in one’s dreams. No leaf could be left unmoved.

I watched as the  _ arai _ swarmed above me. I was flat on my back now, trying to avoid them. They entered my esophagus like a fist. They curled into my ears and wisped into my eyeballs so all I could see was grey mist. Here they curled completely around me. There were many of them yet...they were one single entity. This must be what it’s like to drown, I thought dimly. I could swear the mist was in my skull, entering my brain.

Then, it stopped.

At first I thought I had woken up, but soon realized I was in an empty black void. There was no real sense of space here. There was just blackness--everywhere.

I heard a cough behind me and was surprised that I could turn around. I seemed to move more by willpower than moving my feet.

There, standing ten feet away from me was Nico di Angelo. He was dresseed like he just rolled out of bed--with a crinkled oversized black T-shirt and skull pajama pants. He raised his eyebrows at me for a moment. “Sorry ‘bout this,” he said. “You were dreaming rather powerfully and I got pulled over. I got you out when things started looking bad.”

I briefly wondered why ‘looking bad’ was only thought of as the last part of my dream, but decided not to argue. Instead I asked the more obvious question. “What’s going on? Am I still dreaming? Can you control dreams? That’s a little unfair.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Based on what those  _ arai _ were saying, you can control all liquids.”

I winced.

“Oh, sorry...I didn’t mean to--”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted. The black void filled me with a surprising amount of inspiration for a conversation change. “Where are we? How am I standing?” My feet seemed to dangle above an inky black. When I flexed my foot downward, it moved as easily as if there were no surface to be stood on.

Which, I suppose, there wasn’t.

“My head,” Nico answered, clearly as relieved with the change in conversation as I was. “Well, an environment I created inside my dream.”

I looked around again. “It’s kinda plain. Is this what it’s always like in here?” No wonder the guy was always so grumpy.

Nico had the nerve to roll his eyes. “No. But I was in a rush. You were being... _ loud _ .”

“Well, what can you do in here?” Perhaps it was pushy but I was curious and when your brain is as hyperactive as mine, sometimes it’s hard to control yourself.

Nico didn’t seem offended though. He held out a hand and a moment later a beachball--the sort we have at Camp Half-Blood--appeared there. It seemed to fade in and out of focus depending on how much I concentrated. So did Nico, I realized.

“Cool!” After a moment of hesitation, I grabbed it from his hands. It was just as I remembered. Except the sticker which had unintelligible scrawl. I assumed this was because neither myself nor the son of Hades knew exactly what was written there.

Nico smiled at my enthusiasm and took it as an invitation to show off his lucid dreaming abilities. The void fell away into Camp Half-Blood’s campfire and surrounding arena where Nico proceeded to sit and stare at the flames. I thought that could only be so exciting given that he was the one creating them. I frowned at that thought. Was there any chance that  _ I  _ could create something here?

I placed the ball on the grass and concentrated on my hand. I attempted to make a beach ball appear. Nothing did. I supposed that made sense. If I couldn’t lucid dream in my own head, why would I be able to in Nico’s?

I sighed, it did make me feel a little powerless though. I almost asked the son of Hades to send me back, but I’d only just arrived...and I was worried that I’d have another nightmare.

Feeling slighted, I sat beside Nico.

He glanced up at me, bemused. “It’ll come to you,” he said as if he read my thoughts.

I was startled. “How did you--?”

“Not much else to do here. Have you seen the view?” He gestured around and I noticed that just beyond the trees there was the same inky dark as before. I shivered.

“But I  _ will _ be able to do that? Even here?”

“Yep. Think about it: you wouldn’t be able to walk around or talk if you didn’t have  _ some _ control” He glanced back up at me. “But you probably want to go back--”

“No!” an image of the  _ arai  _ popped back into my head. “...Not yet, I mean. If that’s alright?” I  _ really  _ hoped that was alright.

He just shrugged. “I don’t really care,” he paused. “But I do need to practice.” He jumped up and walked over to some open grass. He waved his hand as if he were erasing a whiteboard. He rocked back and forth for a second and suddenly a pink elephant appeared...or an 3-D image of a pink elephant, anyway. It was about the size of my torso and floated a foot in front of Nico’s face.

I couldn’t help the laugh that spilled out of me. I found myself standing beside the son of Hades on the grass.

“That’s so cool!” I said. “What else can you do?”

The son of Hades grinned at me, an expression I was slowly getting used to seeing on his face. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Give him a hat.”

He did. A cartoonishly large top hat now rested on the elephant’s head.

I grinned and exchanged mischievous looks with the Italian.

“A pair of shoes?” he suggested.

“Better make it two.”

“A skateboard?”

“Make it blue!”

“Want a moustache?”

“You know I do.”

To my surprise he did not put said moustache on the elephant, but rather my face. My hand flew up to my nose where something bristly lay. “Hey!” I complained, but the son of Hades was doubled over laughing. I assumed this was because the moustache was curled up on either end like a cartoon French person.

“This isn’t fair!” I protested.

“Isn’t it? My head, my rules.” Di Angelo looked smug, but I hardly complain when he was being this kind all night. Speaking of which…

My smile disappeared. “Could you check on someone for me? Annabeth sometimes gets nightmares, an if hers are bad…” my voice trailed off into the inky void.

He grimaced. “I can try, but if she’s having one… I’m not sure if I have the strength to bring you both here. I might have to send you back.” He looked apologetic and I suddenly realised that the business about the pink elephant may have been more for  _ my _ benefit than his.

“That’s fine.” I said without hesitation. “I just need to know she’s okay.”

“Maybe…” he paused, “I might be able to teach you to protect yourself, sometime. Not as well as me, but…”

I smiled. “Sounds good. Thank you, Nico.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. After a moment, Annabeth flickered into appearance.    
She wore ratty pajamas and a frantic expression. I had just enough time to smile at her before the entire environment flickered out and I found myself back with the  _ arai _ .

  
  


The  _ arai  _ were just as vicious as before. They nipped at my clothing and curled between my toes. I turned my face to the side, more out of instinct than purpose. And there, on a mound an arms length away...was a beach ball. I grabbed it and swung it at the monsters. In a moment of clarity, I nicked it on one side with Riptide, which appeared back in my pocket, and spewed air at the  _ arai _ . In the way that dreams work, this tiny burst was enough to send them all spiraling, as if a huge gust of wind had hit the beasts instead of the little air from inside the ball.

I grinned. I could get used to this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


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